Yves Saint Laurent (2014)

That was an excellent one.

just watch it!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This movie is much better than I expected. I don't have much interest in haute couture, but I was gripped and the clothes whether on the catwalk or just in general were to die for. It's an awesome and skillfully made biopic that's really addictive and captures Yves Saint Laurent crazy life and pure genius as a self-destructive artist in a beautiful way. In a career spanning fifty years YSL changed women's fashion, but at the movie's core is Saint Laurent's emotional passion, and the dynamics of the love story between him and Bergé. Lets say there wasn't too much loyalty in the bedroom but the movie sure captures the story of the tortured genius and the partner who kept him on track.The movie is beautiful in every detail and the acting is exceptional throughout. Pierre Niney is outstanding as Laurent. He' s a freaking talented actor and I cannot believe that Yves himself would have been disappointed with the portrayal. His performance really made me feel for the guy. Guillaume Gallienne and Charlotte Le Bon are awesome too. I highly recommend this movie. There is something about French movies, even when they're not awesome, they're still great ☺

If you saw the 2011 documentary on Yves St Laurent, "L'Amour Fou' and found a disappoint hagiography (in fact a corporate YSL Foundation production signed off on by his former lover and business partner Pierre Berge ), try again with the new 'Yves St. Laurent'. This new 2 1/2 hour feature directed by Jalil Lespert is of a different order entirely. Where 'L'amour Fou' tried to hide rather than reveal, this f film it keeps no secrets and is as gritty and glorious as St. Laurent's life and work. (another biopic by Bertrand Bonello is in the works for sometime in the fall of 2015) The Lespert film opens in 1976 when St. Laurent is at the public peak of his career. He mysteriously checks into a Paris hotel room as Mr Swann . We next see him sitting on the bed, shirtless, back to the camera on the phone with a journalist 'ready' to give him 'the interview' which turns about to be about his personal 'disorders' . The Proust connection immediately signifies that this is the story not of a talented dress maker but of an exquisitely sensitive and deeply serious artist. But what are we to make of the grotesque story he tells the then tells the journalist about having been picked up as an Arab by the police then jailed and tortured?True or false? Delusion or play acting? As this time shifting film puts together the jigsaw story of the story of his rise and fall we eventually realize that whether or not it is a true story, this is a breaking point for St. Laurent. Art and commerce have collided and the sensitive boy-child who once fashioned intricate ball gowns for paper dolls has been crushed between the two. The film gives a clue in a 'fan' letter that St. Laurent receives in his first flush of success from Andy Warhol who extols them both as the greatest artists—the true revolutionaries— of their time.. But where Warhol operates from ironic distance, St. Laurent has no protective coloration. Warhol can call his studio 'The Factory' ; St.Laurent's atelier is a factory , the fantastically successful one built up by his lover and business partner Bergr. Here orders must be filled, both couture and ready -to -wear collections have come out on schedule. Dozens of white coated assistants constantly demand the attention of the shy faun like St Laurent who just wants to be alone with his classical music and the perfectly sharpened pencil and uniformly sized pieces of thick white paper from which his extraordinary creations will be born.Berge is both St. Laurent's saviour and unwitting Satan. Though presented sympathetically  - St Laurent is truly his true love --- the long business negotiations that we see have nothing to do with art and everything to do with money. By adroit management Berge has built the most successful fashion brand ever, given St. Laurent the success that any artist craves and financial and social benefits that he clearly enjoys. But it has also set the stage for his destruction.His escape from the pressure of production is the club culture of the high 70's. But again, where Warhol observed and documented the nights at Studio 54, St. Laurent is without resistance and is sucked under into a world of superficial beauty fuelled by drink and drugs. Bored now by Berge, he becomes obsessed with a new lover and who introduces him into what we now know as a deathly sexual subculture. Frail as he appears, St. Laurent is —-at least for while a survivor —- and he has one great collection coming out if a hallucinatory stay in Morocco But a complete breakdown inevitably comes —- but this time the white coats that surround him in the beautifully appointed psychiatric hospital are there to nurse and comfort him and he seems strangely at peace. Rumour has Laurent is pronounced dead prematurely . In a Paris newsroom the reporters discuss his obit and whether to talk about the drugs and other rumours . It's a moot point as he is he is alive though barely functioning. Now he has to be physically supported by his models as he takes a final bow for shows that he may or may not have actually designed himself. Our final view is of St. Laurent as an aging, puffy faced, vain and above all sad recluse . His last communication with Berge is a call telling him that they will get 350 million each for selling company. 'Good replies Laurent . "Now I can buy a Rothko" . Another artist irony. Both he and Rothko have filled the modern world with glorious beauty and both have found reality to much to bear. Rothko kills himself. St. Laurent still scratches away at his drawing but he produces nothing; in the end, he only acquires , barely breathing among the living dead.Note: this review is paired with another fashion film, 'Iris'. For that and more reviews see annepetrie.wordpress.com

Yves Saint Laurent is the newest film by actor-director Jalil Lespert and centers (as you might have guessed) on the fashion legend, namely on his earlier years and rise to popularity. You get pretty much what you could expect: YSL's constant changes between suffering personality and creative genius as well as lots of drama in terms of homosexuality, trust and betrayal of friendship, affairs etc.Unfortunately, not only Pierre Niney as YSL could not only convince me (wasn't really his fault though, more of the shoddy writing), but the whole film fell flat. It was all too showy and in your face. Zero subtlety. You hardly learned anything about the character, but it was all focused on putting as much theatricality and sensationalism as possible in these over 100 minutes. And then randomly include a meeting with Kalr Lagerfeld. The only really positive aspect of this one was Guillaume Gallienne as Pierre Bergé, who gave a quality portrayal and it was actually captivating to watch his actions and how he walked the fine line of dealing with the fragile genius. That is not enough though to save the film. Not recommended. You really need to have deep interest into the world of fashion to appreciate this film or maybe then you will hate it even more. Lets hope YSL gets a better biopic in the near future. He certainly deserves it.

The worst movie after "Wilde" 1996 with Stephen Fry and Jude Law. The true about Great Yves St Laurent is in his works it is not in his sexuality. This movie is the second after Wilde that synthesizes two genres - biography with gay soft porno. As a cinema it is zero. We can watch it on the level of the texture - a big misunderstanding, lack of consistency that materialize the psychotic moment in life of Yves.But why this should be interesting, why this orgiastic presentation of the life of genius. I prefer Yves Saint Laurent Aufgehoben in movies, f.ex Visconti 's collaboration with Laurent- Berger, Joseph Losey's ("Romantic English Woman), Claude Lelouch, etc.The authors only superficially placed the topic of neurotic obsession, hysteria and they ferociously fail to do something with this, so why they mention it at all..use it or lose it. Again, not much to be said about such biographic soft porn melodrama. I am sure Berge and Slimane are dismissing the movie